July 20, 2005

Phil Johnson (PyroManiac Blog) has posted an important observation regarding the church growth fad. His rejection of such popular church growth books as The Purpose Driven Church is sound and not laced with the emotionalism of many such rejections.

Johnson also takes issue with George Barna's book Marketing the Church, regarding which he asks:

Do you think [the apostle Paul] would have agreed with Barna, who said we must adapt our message to the preferences of the audience, or risk having them reject the message?

We evangelicals need to wake up to this problem. The “religious right” derided the Clinton administration for its dependence on polling data when determining its course of action, but we fall prey to the polling data of our own congregations when determining what programs we should offer and what should be randomly taught from the contents of holy scripture. It's a travesty.